Shark Island Challenge

The Shark Island Challenge (SIC), held near Cronulla, New South Wales, Australia, is the most celebratedWorld Tour event in bodyboarding since the elimination of the Teahupoo Challenge (Teahupoo) from the world bodyboarding tour.

The Shark Island Challenge first started in 1997, and was a very informal and local event organized by Nathan Purcell and Mark Fordham. The championship would get increasing attention in the following years and was promoted to an international World Tour event sanctioned by the International Bodyboarding Association (IBA) in 2002, eventually turning out to be the premiere event of the tour when the Teahuppo Challenge was eliminated due to lack of financial sponsoring.

As the first Shark Island Challenge it was a very informal competition. Comments from the riders gives the notion that it was more like free-surfing. It could be argued that the low money prize and the fact that it did not scored points for the World Tour contributed to this relaxed feeling toward the competition in this year.

The second incarnation of the SIC showed bodyboarding legend Mike Stewart riding like no other. This time again the competition was on a relaxed mood, and despite the Hawaiian efforts the locals dominated the heats.

This year a promising and very anticipated swell for the beginning of June failed to show up and the competition had to be put on hold. Many stand-out invitees had to drop the contest due to previous scheduled trips (Mike Stewart, Spencer Skipper, Jeff Hubbard and Andre Botha). On Monday the 5th of July, with only six days left in the window, an unexpected 4 – 6 foot swell created perfect conditions for the Island. This was so unexpected that some prominent riders missed their heats (Steve Mackenzie, Paul Barnard and Damian King). The Island didn't break again with good condition to the end of the waiting period and the final results were taken from the first round scores. Brazilian Guilherme Tamega surfed Shark Island for the first time during the only day of competition.

...
Wikipedia